


Stained Glass

by Alexander_L



Series: You and I and the stories we tell – A collection of Ferdinand/Hubert oneshots [13]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Pianist Ferdinand von Aegir, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Soft Ferdinand von Aegir, Soft Hubert von Vestra, Violinist Hubert von Vestra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25777753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_L/pseuds/Alexander_L
Summary: When Hubert and Ferdinand stumble upon an abandoned old chapel during a walk through the woods, it causes some thoughts and feelings Ferdinand assumed were long-buried to resurface and he attempts to make sense of them through music.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Series: You and I and the stories we tell – A collection of Ferdinand/Hubert oneshots [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794589
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	Stained Glass

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slow, introspective one, featuring talk of religion, more pianist Ferdie and the new addition of violinist Hubert, and most importantly, it features their dog. They are in their forties in this oneshot, after _A Song for Her_ where they retire and found a historical research institute.

###  Hubert

  
  


“Did you know this was here?” Ferdinand asks, brushing aside a tangle of ivy covering the door to the run-down chapel. 

I glance around at the small courtyard full of statues of saints and bishops, some vandalized with faded paint and others smashed to bits, the anger that reduced them to debris long-forgotten judging by the greenery that has overtaken the whole place. “I did not. It seems that we are not alone in being unaware of its existence, though. There are no footprints anywhere around here.”

“We have strolled through these woods many times and never come across it, so I am not surprised others would miss it as well. The forest seems to have reclaimed it.” 

He picks up the head of one of the broken statues and examines it. As I step closer to look at it too, I see what seems to be an effigy of Seiros. It is hard to tell because the eyes have been smashed out with a hammer and a line gouged across the face of the statue, making its features difficult to discern.

“The fury of people who lost something they loved in the war,” Ferdinand guesses.

“Or the typical rabble of malcontents eager to hop aboard any excuse for anger and violence. Our war against the church turned many a man’s wrath against them without any prior reason, I imagine.”

“That is true.” He sets the statue head down and walks towards the door to the chapel building. “What a pity. This was a beautiful place once. Probably very popular for small weddings.”

I point at the field visible through a gap in the far wall and say, “Funerals too.”

Ferdinand glances at the row of weather-worn gravestones and nods. He turns his attention back to the door and tries the handle. It’s locked but I know it will do little to deter his curiosity. Stepping back, he takes a deep breath and prepares to kick the door down but I grab him right in time and say, “Your knee!”

“Ugh. Damn my knee!” he says. “I am too young to be caring about my knees. People run marathons in their forties, Hubert! Surely I can kick in a door.”

“People who did not have their kneecap shattered in the war,” I remind him. “Now stop your grousing and step out of the way.”

He mutters something about being too young for nonsense like this, and as much as it annoys me it also provokes a pang of sympathy as well. Ferdinand has always prided himself on his physical strength. Facing the consequences of years of hasty battlefield healing spells has not been an easy thing for him as of late.

I blast the door open with a spell and the sound sends Pan bounding back over to us from where he was chasing a squirrel in the woods outside the courtyard. He barks – of course he does, the damn noisy hound – and Ferdinand pats his head and reassures him, “We are alright, boy. Thank you for checking.”

Falling into step beside us, Pan follows us into the abandoned chapel and sticks close to Ferdinand’s heels as he explores. I, however, stand still and marvel at the place, a feeling not unlike reverence stealing across me.

Above the altar on the far end is a huge half-wall window of stained glass. Although it is riddled with holes and in some parts is just a patch of bare steel frame with all the glass shattered from it, it is still beautiful. In a haunting way it is perhaps even more beautiful than it might have been in its prime. The sunlight that filters through the wind-tossed boughs of trees creates a shifting mosaic of color across the floor of the chapel. As my eyes follow them, I notice a small upright pianoforte tucked away to the side of the room. There are no holes in the ceiling or windows nearby it and it seems relatively well-preserved from the elements.

Ferdinand walks over to lift the cover and brush the dust from the keys with his handkerchief. He touches one and a note rings out with surprising clarity, only slightly out of tune. He brushes the dust off the bench and sits down, tapping the pedal with his foot experimentally. It squeaks in protest, making Pan bark again at the noise, and Ferdinand moves his foot off of it.

As he begins to play, I realize that he is improvising a new melody. It is simpler than most of his other works, likely because of the broken pedal and the several missing keys. But its simplicity is what makes it so striking.

Wandering over to the altar, I sit down on it and stare up at the stained glass, allowing my attention to slip into a sort of contemplative daze with only the two sensations of sound and vision filling my mind. The music is beautiful and melancholy, tinged with several contradicting emotions that I cannot quite place and I do not wish to put the effort into unraveling at the moment.

I am not sure how long passes; I know only that some of the light has faded by the time I snap out of my reverie to the sound of silence. Ferdinand has stopped playing but he is still seated at the bench, staring blankly down at the keys with a thoughtful expression. Pan is sitting beside him, nudging at his hand until Ferdinand pets him absentmindedly.

“What is on your mind?” I ask.

“Nothing of consequence,” he says, brushing off the mood and standing up. “You seemed quite taken with the piece I was playing. Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes.” 

“Hm. It was a bit gloomy for my taste.”

“I thought you liked gloomy things,” I say with a teasing smile. “Or have you been lying about your irrational attraction to me these past twenty years?”

“I like my men to be gloomy, but not my music,” he says, returning my smile and walking over to kiss my cheek. 

“What a relief.”

Taking my hand, Ferdinand leads me out of the chapel and back into the woods. “Shall we walk back home, my dear?”

* * *

I cannot get the melody that Ferdinand played out of my head for the next few days. I find it running through my mind as I work and in the dusty silence of the institute’s archives I indulge in humming it once in a while. It contains an emotion I do not have a word for but one that strikes something deeply within me despite, or perhaps because of, its ambiguity. I would ask Ferdinand about it, but he hasn’t brought up our discovery of the chapel since we left it and in a way the whole thing feels like a dream.

One afternoon while Ferdinand is away for the day attending a conference, I take Pan and return to the little patch of untamed forest several miles away from the institute and search for the chapel, just to reassure myself it was real. I fail to find it by the time my legs have grown weary and my patience worn thin by Pan’s energetic dashing around and yipping at squirrels.

Annoyed by the whole thing, I lock up the institute an hour early and return to our flat. Feeling restless and distracted, I take my violin out of its case and inspect it to make sure it is still perfectly in tune, since I have not played it in several weeks. I learnt it five or six years ago, determined to have something other than work to share with Ferdinand. It brought him great joy to play together and I found that Dorothea’s claim that you’re never too old to learn an instrument was true and I had somewhat of a talent for it, surprisingly enough.

But I usually only play it with Ferdinand, for it is meant to be a shared pastime not a solitary one. Tonight since he is not due home until seven or eight, I will have to play alone in an attempt to get that song out of my head.

Humming it to myself for a moment to get a sense for its key, I focus on the simple progression of chords and the lilting melody, then I pick it out on the violin slowly. It is neither long nor complex and once I have mastered it, I decide to expound upon it, adding lines that I feel will harmonize well should Ferdinand wish to join me on the pianoforte sometime.

Eyes closed to focus entirely on the sound of the music, I lose myself in my concentration for I know not how long and I do not hear the sound of the door opening. Pan, useless hound that he is, does not serve his primary function tonight of being a doorbell and barking either in alarm and greeting at people and lets Ferdinand walk into the living room without a sound.

I do not notice him perched on the edge of the sofa watching me until I finish the refrain I am improvising on and open my eyes. 

“How was your day, my love?” I ask, lowering the violin from my shoulder.

But Ferdinand doesn’t respond to the question. Instead he stares at me with a strangely guarded expression.

“Why are you playing that?” he asks.

“Because it has been stuck in my head. I’ve worked it into somewhat of a duet if you’d like to-”

He shakes his head. “It is not worth pursuing. I would rather not play it.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I told you. Melancholy does not suit me.”

“Then why did you create it?” I press, seeking an answer beyond the question itself that I think Ferdinand is aware of. 

_ What was it about the chapel that affected you so?  _

“Whim,” Ferdinand replies and gets up, walking off towards the kitchen.

“I took Pan for a walk in the woods today,” I say, following him, the violin still held in my hands. “I couldn’t find that place, though. Perhaps we hallucinated it.”

“That would be quite disturbing,” he says off-handedly. “Were you experimenting with poisons and decided to use us as test subjects?”

“I would never-”

He looks over his shoulder at me and raises his eyebrows.

“-do that again,” I add, exhibiting just enough remorse to prevent him from launching into yet another lecture about how that was an  _ ‘unconscionable’ _ and  _ ‘unacceptable’ _ way to test non-lethal poisons despite its obvious efficiency.

Ferdinand smiles slightly and returns to rummaging around in the cupboards. “Tea?” he offers.

“Have we any of Petra’s ginger spice blend left?”

“No, we ran out. Almyran pine?”

“That’ll do.”

He puts the water on to boil and I set the violin down, walking over to put my arms around his waist. Kissing his neck, I ask again, “How was your day?”

“Horrendously and unforgivably boring,” he sighs. “Yours?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. I enjoyed playing. Perhaps I shall play on my own even when you're not around more.”

“As long as you still play with me from time to time,” he says, turning around to take my face in his hands and kiss me.

Pulling him closer, I kiss him slowly and fondly until the teakettle begins to whistle and I am forced to let go of him. I walk over to the dining room to set out teacups and a package of biscuits on the table and find that Ferdinand has left his things scattered across it again. With a pang of annoyance, I pick up his keys and gloves and set them in what is  _ supposed _ to be their appointed place (that aggravating man!) and grab his briefcase. 

But the fastenings on it are not done-up properly and a handful of papers spills out. As I gather them up, I see that they are notes from the conference and oh good lord do they look dull. He wasn’t joking. There are random notes and sketches across all the margins – a tribute to how bored Ferdinand truly was.

As I pick up the last page, I pause and study the drawing sketched on the back of it. It is the broken pattern of the stained glass window, unmistakably so.

Setting it on the table, I wait for Ferdinand to come sit down with the tea pot. The second he walks in and sinks into the adjacent chair, he freezes then snatches up the drawing.

“You were going through my things?” he asks angrily.

“I was merely moving your briefcase and it fell open. I gathered up your papers for you and set them atop it. This one caught my eye, though,” I answer.

Twenty years have built enough trust that he takes me at my word and his anger fades. “How is it in any way remarkable? It is not even a very good drawing. You should see the one I did of the prime minister. That one would amuse you.”

“Ferdinand,” I murmur and his attempt at levity fades away.

“If you have something to say, say it, Hubert,” he replies, pouring the tea.

“Do you… Hm.” I pause to consider whether this is a question that should be asked. It is not one I have ever thought to ask before in all our years together. “Do you miss-”

“The church?” he supplies when I pause again.

I nod.

Ferdinand is silent for a long moment, blowing absently on the steam rising from his cup. Then he says, “There are some things not even I know how to discuss, my dear.”

And that is when I put a word to the emotion his melody from the chapel evokes:  _ longing _ .

The idea strikes me with a sharp stab of guilt and I set down my teacup and get up.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“I forgot to feed Pan,” I say and leave the dining room.

I thought guilt was a thing long left in the past but music has a way of unburying things, doesn’t it? Is that what makes Ferdinand so uncomfortable about the song?

It was by Edelgard’s order and my hand that the world Ferdinand grew up in was ripped apart at the seams. I took away his family’s reputation, along with the systems of nobility he had based his whole identity on. I pulled him into a war that took the lives of his friends. Discovering that I took something else from him that he held dear unsettles me, perhaps irrationally so. I did not know Ferdinand had any true religious feelings. I thought his prayers and enthusiastic choir practices were all just part of the facade his younger self clung to desperately. So steeped in my own bias, I had never considered the fact it could have been genuine and that it was more than just his family and friends that he turned against in the war.

As I walk into the kitchen and measure food into Pan’s bowl, I realize that I forgot an essential part of feeding the dog: the dog. He is still sitting at Ferdinand’s feet begging for tea biscuits.

“Pan!” I call, but he does not come.

I return to the dining room to find Ferdinand feeding him a treat. He glances up at me sheepishly and I shake my head.

“He is going to get fat if you keep spoiling him,” I say.

“I have put on a few pounds around the waist and you still love me. I believe we can love Pan too without judging him for his physique,” he protests.

“It’s not healthy for him!”

Ferdinand sighs. “I know. Go on, Pan! Go eat your supper! Go!”

Pan whines and leans against Ferdinand’s legs, giving him truly pitiful puppydog eyes.

Ferdinand attempts to frown sternly at him but cannot hold the expression for more than a moment without smiling.

“Come here, you,” I say, picking up the dog and carrying him back to the kitchen, depositing him in front of his food bowl. “Stop manipulating Ferdinand.”

Pan stares at me resentfully. I stare back.

“Eat.”

His belligerent resolve breaks and he obeys, settling for his dog food instead of tea biscuits.

“One of us has to be the lovable parent and the other the lawful one,” Ferdinand says, wandering into the kitchen and leaning against the doorframe. “Thank you for being the lawful one. I would far rather be the one he likes more.”

“Everyone likes you more. It is not a condition unique to animals,” I say.

Ferdinand picks my violin up and plucks at one of the strings. “Play the song for me.”

“I thought you didn’t care for it.”

“Play it. Please. I want to hear your version.”

He holds out the violin and I take it, going over to the living room. Ferdinand sits down on the sofa, sipping his cup of tea and staring at the wallpaper with faraway eyes. As I play, he grows more and more withdrawn but some of the strained, anxious look leaves his manner, replaced with what seems to be peace.

“Your version is beautiful. Far better than the original,” he says at last as I finish the song.

I set my violin in its case and come to sit beside him, taking his empty teacup from his hands and setting it on the coffee table. Brushing a strand of hair from his face and tucking it behind his ear, I say, “Look at me.”

“Why do you sound so concerned?” he asks, his eyes meeting mine. 

“Something is the matter with you and I fear that somehow I am the cause of it.”

“You are only ever the cause of things that bring me joy, dearest, not pain,” he says. He leans in to kiss me and although I know he is evading my question, the tenderness of the kiss is impossible to resist and I gather him into my arms and allow myself to drop the subject for a moment and enjoy it.

When we part, Ferdinand leans his head in the crook of my neck and nuzzles soft kisses against my skin. “Is this something that we have to talk about?” he asks quietly.

“I have made it my mission in life to understand you. That an important facet of your many complexities has escaped my inspection troubles me,” I reply.

“Then I shall explain what I was thinking about in the chapel and why I don’t want to go back and find it again.”

“Do you miss religion?” I ask.

This time he answers me matter-of-factly. “Yes.”

I wait for him to elaborate and after a moment of thought, peppered by more idle kisses, he does.

“I do not think I miss it for what it was,” he says. “I miss it for what I was within it. Does that make any sense?”

“It does. Religion, I am told, offers structure and certainty. It must have given you confidence to have an established understanding of the world. Is that what you mean?”

He nods. "Yes. And I have never felt so scared in my life as the day we invaded Garreg Mach and I watched the altar of Seiros crumble and burn,” he says quietly. “If there was one lesson I learnt in my youth it was that I was fallible and foolish.” He looks away to avoid my eyes and is silent for a moment. Then he adds, “It was not with certainty that I turned heretic, Hubert, only necessity.”

There is no avoiding the question I must ask in response. “Do you regret it?”

“Now? No. Not after I have seen Fódlan thrive free of the yolk of the church’s rule. But then? With no evidence but hope that what we were doing would be worth it in the end? Yes, there were days I regretted it. I worried often that in our attempts to tear down what was twisted and broken about the church, we would go too far and destroy what was good. There were many a night Mercedes and I would stay up talking in that old ruined cathedral. Eventually we both came to terms with it and gained the confidence we needed to fight.”

I comb my fingers through his hair and kiss his temple gently. “Confidence was never a thing you seemed to lack. In fact you unrelenting exuberance was quite a trial to put up with at times.”

“It was not a farce, if that is what you are thinking,” he says. “I might have had my doubts about some matters, but I trusted you and Edelgard with my life. I would not have followed you down your bloody path had I not.”

I want to ask Ferdinand more questions but he pulls out of my arms and paces restlessly about the room, causing Pan to wander in from the kitchen and follow him in concern, trotting along at his heels back and forth and back and forth.

“Ferdinand,” I say after a few minutes when he shows no sign of settling down.

“Oh,” he says, stopping and stirring from his thoughts. “I am doing it again.”

“You are going to tread a path into the carpet if you keep pacing whenever you are lost in thought,” I remark.

“We should see about getting those wood floors installed,” he replies off-handedly. “I will put that on my list for tomorrow. I believe we should have it in the budget next month to do a little renovation, if we economize in other-” He puts his hand on his forehead and sighs. “Now I am babbling. I am sorry, Hubert. I do not much like talking about things so far in the past.”

“Perhaps I should not have brought them up. My curiosity is often a cruelty,” I say. “Like with the poisons.”

He smiles slightly. “Never again.”

“Never again,” I promise.

I rise from the sofa and walk over to the entreeway where I put on my coat, gloves and shoes and grab an umbrella.

“Are you going out? I only just got in,” Ferdinand says.

“We are going to Eastside for an ale,” I tell him. “Sylvain once said that you should never talk religion without liquor handy and I think perhaps he was right. Let’s go have a drink.”

Ferdinand perks up a bit. “Alright. Come along, Pan!”

“No, don’t take-” I begin, but he is already clipping the leash to the dog’s collar. “Just because that bartender allows dogs in his tavern does not mean it is hygienic,” I grumble.

Ferdinand ignores me, smiling at Pan’s joyous yip and the way the ridiculous hound jumps up and down and wags his tail so hard his whole body dances.

I sigh and hold the door open for them as they step outside, then lock up behind us.

When we reach the nearby pub, Ferdinand greets the bartender and orders us our regular drinks while I head to our shadowy corner table. A young couple has had the audacity to expropriate the table for their own use but at the sight of me they nervously get up and move to the bar. I forgive them just this once because they are newcomers who don’t know these unspoken reservations and smile to myself as I sit down. It is good to know that I have not gone so soft that I cannot scare the shit out of someone with just an icy glare.

“Arabella told me to remind you not to scare the customers or she will stop stocking your favorite ale,” Ferdinand says as he sets two glasses down and sits across from me. 

“Where’s Pan?” I ask.

“He has made some new friends,” Ferdinand replies and points to the other side of the pub where a gaggle of university boys are throwing a shoe across the room for Pan to fetch whilst Arabella watches in consternation, no doubt regretting her leniency in allowing dogs into her establishment.

I chuckle and take a sip of my ale. Meanwhile, Ferdinand drains half his glass and sets it down emphatically.

“There,” he says. “I have liquor in me. If you must press this subject, do get it over with so that we can speak of lighter things or perhaps play some pool.”

“I am not playing pool with you. A lifetime of wielding a lance has given you an unfair advantage of dexterity.”

He huffs in annoyance and takes another long drink. “Hubert.”

“I suppose there is not much left to say. I merely want to ask if-” I have had the whole walk over here to think of the right words for this question and still they stick in my throat. I take a sip of ale to stall for a second then say, “Did you ever consider siding with the church and standing against us? I always took your loyalty for granted. The fact I could trust it so absolutely was one of the best things about you. To think that there was a chance that you could have been swayed by doubt or religious conviction… Well, it unsettles me. Hypotheticals are pointless, I know. But a better understanding of the things I was blind to in the past serves some purpose, in my mind.”

“Hypotheticals are pointless. And yet I ponder them from time to time as well,” he agrees.

I wait for him to elaborate and after a moment he answers my question.

“Yes. I believe that in a different life or different world, should such a thing be possible, there is a chance I could have stood against you and Edelgard. The faith I had in you could have been placed with the church had Byleth given them her loyalty. She was a significant influence on me.”

“You are not alone in that. I think that had she not sided with us we would have lost Sylvain and Felix’s support, perhaps even some of our own Black Eagles.”

Ferdinand sighs. “Be honest with me. Why do these hypotheticals bother you so? There are a thousand things that could have lost us the war and changed the course of our lives and they do not keep you up at night anymore now that victory and peace are well-established.”

I glance around the pub quickly to make sure we are not overheard or watched, then I reach out and take Ferdinand’s hand in mine. “Truth be told, I am amazed that I have been lucky enough to have your loyalty after being instrumental in the destruction of many things you held dear. To hear that religion was another thing I had a hand in taking from you pained me.”

He smiles slightly and squeezes my hand. “I have learned to navigate my life outside of the certainty and structure of religion. I do not resent it from being taken from me anymore. It was a conscious decision after all, not one you forced upon me. Perhaps you take too much credit for influencing me, Hubert. After all, you had very little sway over me back then.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the group of university boys approaching us, Pan trotting alongside them, and I let go of Ferdinand’s hand and turn to look at them with a stern expression in hopes they go away.

They do not.

“Your dog ate my shoe,” a tall, strapping lad says who I can tell immediately from his stance and manner is the leader of the group.

“Perhaps you should not have presented it to him as a gift then,” I reply coldly whilst Ferdinand calls Pan over and pets him.

The lad rolls his eyes and the others laugh at him. The whole group is quite inebriated it appears.

“What is it that you are after? My shoe as a replacement?” I ask.

“Maybe you pick up my tab, old man?”

I reach out preemptively to grab Ferdinand’s arm, knowing his reaction instantly, but I am too late. Leaping to his feet, he steps closer to the lad and stares fiercely at him, although he has to tip his head up a bit to do so since he is quite a few inches shorter.

“Old man?” he echoes aggressively. “That is no way to address-”

“Your elders?” the lad finishes with a grin.

Ferdinand sputters. Pan barks. I lean back in my seat and take a sip of my ale with a resigned sigh.

“You would do best not to speak so flippantly with men who were winning battles while you were still toddling around in bibs and bonnets,” Ferdinand says. 

The lads fire back some insolent drivel to which Ferdinand responds with increasing indignation. Arabella catches my eye from across the room and gestures for me to do something.

Finishing my glass of ale, I get up and walk calmly over to them. With a flick of my hand I cast a silence spell that envelops the whole group and holds them paralyzed and silent. Crouching down next to one of the boys, I wrench off his shoe then walk over to the leader and drop it pointedly on the floor in front of him.

“A lesson from a wise old elder,” I tell him. “Live with the consequences of your decisions.”

As I walk towards the door, beckoning for Ferdinand to follow, I release the silence spell and the lads break into an angry chaos. The leader lunges after us but I cast a swift warp spell and he vanishes from view.

“What did you do with him?” the others shout in alarm until he bursts back inside from the back alley, dripping wet from the rain and cursing with the fury born of mud-soaked socks.

But none of them pursue us as we leave the pub and as we step outside Ferdinand lets the laughter he was holding back break free. 

“A little dramatic, dear,” he remarks.

“It amused the other patrons,” I reply, snapping the umbrella open and holding it above us.

Ferdinand reaches down to clip Pan’s leash on him and ruffle his ears. “Do not eat people’s shoes, boy. It is bad manners.”

“Next time you need not defend my honor. I am well aware that I am starting to go gray far earlier than I should. I blame it on the stress of living with you,” I tell him.

“I think you look youthful as ever,” he says, linking his arm through mine. “Just a bit more… dignified. It suits you.”

I scoff and he smiles at me. But his expression fades to a serious one. “There is no wiser advice than what you gave them. We must all live with the consequences of our decisions – you and I and Edelgard more than anyone.”

“Yes,” I answer. “We must.”

“I would like to hear you play your violin some more when we get home.”

“Not if it puts you in dejected spirits.”

“I think it will be comforting.”

“Then I shall play as much as you like.”

**Author's Note:**

> Although Ferdinand insists to everyone that Pan is named after the historical figure, in truth Hubert named him Pandemonium because of what a noisy puppy he was.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading! You can find me on Twitter @lalexanderwrite


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